Mecca and Eden

“Both learned and lively, Brannon Wheeler’s Mecca and Eden makes for fascinating reading. In contrast to virtually all other Islamicists, Wheeler treats Islam not as a unique, privileged, or anomalous example, but as a key datum for the understanding of religion in general. Above all, he is concerned to relate Islamic narratives of Eden, which treat the state of primordial perfection and its loss, to rituals, relics, and other systems that organize society in the absence of such perfection. The Islamic state, in particular, justifies its necessity and power with reference to this regrettable situation. It is a point of far-ranging importance, made with real intelligence, subtlety, and nuance.”—Bruce Lincoln, author of Holy Terrors: Thinking about Religion after September 11

“Brannon Wheeler has produced a book that is luxuriant in documentary detail but at the same time original in its analytical insight. It makes a case against fundamentalism that neither intellectual historians nor policy mavens could ever mount: fundamentalists, precisely because they are apocalypticists blind to history, not only misread spiritual dictates but also ignore ritual practices that mark Islamic civilization, according to Ibn Khaldun, as a deferred utopia dependent on both religion and the state. Wheeler’s remarkable inquiry, at once painstaking and bold, brackets Mecca with Eden and in so doing enlivens and expands both. It marks a new high in comparative studies of religious data and ritual practices. It should be mandatory reading for all students of the Middle East, world history, and intercivilization conflict.”—Bruce Lawrence, author of Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden

"Wheeler is a masterful and thoughtful guide as he leads the reader through the rich and varied facets of the human religious expressions he presents back to his primary thesis."

"In a marvelously creative and imaginative exploration of what makes spaces and places "sacred," Brannon Wheeler leads readers across a too-seldom traversed landscape. . . . Even hardcore Islamic studies specialists will learn a great deal from Mecca and Eden, not only because of its in-depth analysis of hard-to-access material, but because of its arresting method."—John Renard, Religion and the Arts

"A well-documented and imaginative discussion of certain social and religious phenomena. . . . Wheeler combines close readings of Islamic legal, exegetical, and other texts pertaining to relics, rituals, and territory with methods and insights drawn from the anthropological and comparative study of religion."—Louise Marlow, American Historical Review

Acknowledgments
Notes on Conventions
Introduction
            Ritual and Social Order
            Ritual, Relics, and the Meccan Sanctuary
            Chapter Outline
1. Treasure of the Ka'bah
            1 Temple Implements and Treasure of the Ka?bah
            2 Swords and the Origins of Islam
            Conclusions Swords and the Origins of Civilization
2. Utopia and Civilization in Islamic Rituals
            1 Touching the Penis
            2 Adam and Eve’s Genitals
            Conclusions Taboo and Contagion
3. Relics of the Prophet Muhammad
            1 Relics of the Prophet Muhammad
            2 Relics and Civilization
            Conclusions Relics and Portable Territory
4. Tombs of Giant Prophets
            1 Long Tombs
            2 Giants
            Conclusions Technology and Human Size
Conclusions: The Pure, the Sacred, and Civilization
            Status and Power
            Symbol and Agency
            General Conclusions
Notes
Works Cited
Index